00s pop music

941. ‘Unbreakable’, by Westlife

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

Westlife’s eleventh number one in three and a half years. How are we all holding up…?

Unbreakable, by Westlife (their 11th of fourteen #1s)

1 week, 10th – 17th November 2002

My patience, for one, is well and truly shot. With each successive ballad, Westlife get more and more turgid. Is this any worse than their early hits? I think it is, but who can tell. When you get to number eleven then the law of diminishing returns has well and truly set in. The worst thing is, their last chart-topper, ‘World of Our Own’, was an upbeat bop. We’ve had hints, glimpses that it could have been so different.

‘Unbreakable’ starts off slowly, with a beat and tempo bastardised from ‘Hero’ and ‘Unchained Melody’. Yes, two of 2002’s previous big ballad hits. Call me cynical… To compound the lack of originality, the video was filmed on the same beach as ‘If I Let You Go’. By the end we’re soaring, or at least lumbering like a drunken buffalo, to a dramatic finish, complete with sleigh bells because it is almost Christmas after all.

And of course, there’s a gigantic key change. But even that lacks the fun, the charm, of their earlier key changes, because you know it’s coming. It arrives slowly, with a huge drawing of breath, like the tide going out before a gigantic tsunami that nobody is ever going to outrun.

The overriding feeling here is of a group going through the motions. This was the lead single from Westlife’s first greatest hits album, and it draws a line under the boyband part of their career. Their final three number ones will be covers of MOR classics, from the likes Barry Manilow and Bette Midler. Probably wisely, they knew that the twelve-year-olds that had bought their singles in 1999 were now sixteen-year-olds who had moved on. From here on they were shooting squarely for the mum, and grandma, market.

All of which ties into something I wrote a few posts ago, that we’re reaching the end of the golden age of the boyband, an era that has stretched from the late-eighties right through the nineties, past the good (Take That, 5ive), the bad (Boyzone, Westlife) and the ugly (911… oops)

938. ‘The Ketchup Song (Aserejé)’, by Las Ketchup

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

Ah, the classic autumn Eurotrash hit. Played in bars across Europe all summer, and belatedly making #1 in the UK after the leaves have started to fall…

The Ketchup Song (Aserejé), by Las Ketchup (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 13th – 20th October 2002

To Whigfield, Eiffel 65 and DJ Ötzi we can now add Las Ketchup, with this slice of Spanglish surf rock. And, of course, the accompanying dance routine. They were a Spanish girl group, three sisters, and this was their first hit. And call me cynical, but when your group and your first single share a title, and that title involves ‘Ketchup’, then it’s safe to assume you’re not aiming for longevity.

But also, call me surprised, because this isn’t at all as bad as I’d expected. It’s horribly catchy, sure, and largely nonsense (‘aserejé’ is not a Spanish word, nor is ‘buididipi’, nor ‘seibuinova’) with a chorus based on ‘Rapper’s Delight’, but it’s much more of a rock song than I recalled, with the guitars switching between eighties soft, and growling surf, rock. It’s not as in-your-face irritating as some of the Eurotrash that’s gone before and, despite its obvious disposableness, it still sounds like a real song.

This is all a revelation, presumably because sixteen-year-old me wrote this off as novelty crap without giving it a proper listen. I’d still not choose to listen to it, but couldn’t promise that it wouldn’t get me on a dancefloor in double quick time after a jug of sangria. And at least it came out when I was too old to be haunted by its dance routine at primary school discos, unlike ‘Saturday Night’ and ‘Macarena’.

My teenage aloofness has also caused me to miss how bloody massive this song was in 2002. It made #1 in twenty-seven countries, and Wiki lists it as being a chart-topper in every territory in which it was released except the US, Japan, and – the only European hold-outs – Croatia. It didn’t lead to any lasting success, however, and Las Ketchup are gold-star one hit wonders in the UK. Their last release was in 2006, when they represented Spain at Eurovision, finishing twenty-first with ‘Un Blodymary’, though they continue to perform.

One other thing that had passed me by regarding ‘The Ketchup Song’, as well as its relative quality and its success, was the fact that the gibberish lyrics are alleged in Latin America to be secretly demonic… ‘Aserejé’, some religious types argued, sounds like ‘a ser hereje’ (‘let’s be heretical’), with other lyrics supposedly referring to hell and Satanic rituals. The song was banned by a TV station in the Dominican Republic on these grounds… So, press play below at your peril!

937. ‘The Long and Winding Road’ / ‘Suspicious Minds’, by Will Young & Gareth Gates

/ UK #1s blog / 12 Comments

After two solo number ones apiece, it was surely inevitable that a Pop Idol Top Two duet was on its way…

The Long and Winding Road / Suspicious Minds, by Will Young & Gareth Gates (their 3rd of four #1s each)

2 weeks, from 29th September – 13th October 2002

And after two solo number ones apiece that I’ve tried to make the best of, and in some cases quite enjoyed, it was surely inevitable that my patience would run out. It’s not just that it’s the sixth Pop Idol #1 in barely six months, and it’s not just that they’re desecrating both the Beatles and Elvis. It’s both those things, but also the fact that both these songs are sooo very dull.

Their take on ‘The Long and Winding Road’ starts off as the sort of lounge-pop that male-female duos perform in the background of posh hotel buffets, under strict instructions to be as bland and inoffensive as possible so as not to distract people from their lobster. It picks up a little, and the harmonies are nice, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it before. Which is odd for a two-week number one in 2002, when I was amid one of my chart-watching phases. Or it’s entirely possible that I’ve just forgotten.

Interestingly – potentially the only interesting thing about this record – that song is a duet while the other is left entirely over to Gareth. His cover of ‘Suspicious Minds’ featured on the soundtrack to Disney’s ‘Lilo & Stitch’, and is bad in a completely different way. Although Gareth Gates is not vocally on a par with Elvis (newsflash!), it is upbeat, it is perky, and it sounds like he is having fun. But it has that classic, syrupy, karaoke production that reality TV singing shows will became famous for, with any potential edge polished away to nothing.

I’m not one for venerating the sacred cows of pop. I say have at them. One of my favourite covers of a Beatles song is Tiffany’s clattering ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. And of course Elvis’ and the Beatles’ back-catalogues is filled with covers, of varying quality. But for God’s sake, do something interesting. Add something to the conversation, for better or worse. It’s not as if ‘The Long and Winding Road’ is many people’s favourite Beatles’ song in the first place. And while ‘Suspicious Minds’ is an undisputed classic, Fine Young Cannibals proved that it was possible to reimagine it and not piss off too many people. Hell, even Will Young’s cover of a cover of ‘Light My Fire’ had something interesting about it.

But then ‘something interesting’ isn’t often in the remit of Simon Cowell and his production team. You do wonder if the choice of artists being covered here was intentional trolling, but I suspect it was just further proof of a lack of imagination. We’ll do Elvis and, um, The Beatles! This was still actually quite avant-garde for a Cowell release. If he had his way, he’d probably be happy with a never-ending parade of ‘Unchained Melody’ covers.

I imagine Gareth was happier than Will when doing these covers, but that’s probably based on the direction their careers went in the years after Pop Idol. 2003 will bring one final chart-topper for both, and these songs will give a clearer indication of what lay in store for either boy.

936. ‘Just Like a Pill’, by Pink

/ UK #1s blog / 13 Comments

God, I haven’t heard this song in years. But within three notes of the intro, I am sixteen again.

Just Like a Pill, by Pink (her 2nd of three #1s)

1 week, from 22nd – 29th September 2002

September 2002, and I had just started my final year of high school, where Pink’s (sorry, P!nk’s) ‘Missundaztood’ (sorry, ‘M!ssundaztood’) was one of three albums that seemed to be on constant rotation, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers’s ‘By the Way’, and No Doubt’s ‘Rock Steady’.

And I can see why it appealed to us teens. It’s moody, it’s got big beefy chords, it’s got lyrics about bad trips, and morphine, and a ‘bitch’ nurse (is Pink the first woman to curse in a #1 single?). It’s emo-pop, a couple of years before that was an actual genre. But it’s still very much a pop song, crammed with hooks.

Listening to it now, ‘Just Like a Pill’ feels both slightly lightweight, and slightly too polished; but has also held up pretty well over the intervening two decades. The chorus is one of Pink’s best, and her voice suits this sort of pop rock much more than the R&B she started her career off with. It frustrates me that the middle-eight, setting up a soaring final chorus, is just a repeat of the bridge, though. It leaves something lacking.

Not that it should matter, but Pink wasn’t just cosplaying as a drug addict for credibility, having had a near-fatal overdose at sixteen. Although she was often lumped together with the other female pop stars of the day, she always had an edge to her, which for me made her one of the more interesting, but also slightly overlooked, singers of the ‘00s. And yet… having just checked her discography, colour me surprised to see that Pink has had twenty-one Top 10 hits in the UK, across twenty-one years! I’d guess that’s way more than many of her contemporaries.

I need to do a Pink deep-dive, because looking down her singles discography there are some great tunes which – like this one – I haven’t heard in an age (including one more classic pop-rock #1 to come). And actually, the fact that ‘Just Like a Pill was her first solo number one is surprising, given the ubiquity of the album’s two earlier singles – ‘Get the Party Started’, and the even more emo ‘Don’t Let Me Get Me’. So why do I overlook her? Is it because she never quite fit in with the female pop star image? Because she went her own way? Because she was, dare I say, m!ssundaztood?

935. ‘The Tide Is High (Get the Feeling)’, by Atomic Kitten

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

The Kittens are back, and so is that tacky, pre-set drumbeat. Seriously they should have patented it, so that it could only ever have been used to announce a new tune from Britain’s favourite Scouse likely lasses.

The Tide Is High (Get the Feeling), by Atomic Kitten (their 3rd and final #1)

3 weeks, from 1st – 22nd September 2002

Last time out they were desecrating the memory of the Bangles, with their truly criminal cover of ‘Eternal Flame’. Now it’s the turn of an iconic act from the other end of the eighties to act as a scratching post: Blondie. However, despite being much more a fan of Blondie than the Bangles, I can’t get so worked up about this take on ‘The Tide Is High’…

Maybe because this is, by far, my least favourite of Blondie’s six chart-toppers? Maybe because it’s a cover of a cover, Blondie having taken The Paragon’s sixties original? Maybe because it’s an upbeat track, which is much more in Atomic Kitten’s wheelhouse, and not an emotional ballad?

Not that I’m going to argue that this record is particularly good, either. But it washes over me, putting me in a late summer kind of mood. They remain limited singers, but this far into Atomic Kitten’s career that is no surprise. You knew what you were going to get. Plus, they add a new middle-eight – an original composition called ‘Get the Feelin’’ – so it feels slightly more than just a straight cover.

Still, the fact that it stayed at number one for three weeks – a long stretch by early ‘00s standards – is surprising. In fact, it should be noted that none of the Kitten’s three chart-toppers were one-weekers, which is impressive, and suggests that they had a casual, widespread appeal rather than a devoted fanbase. For purely circumstantial evidence of this theory, I can confirm I have never met anyone who would confess to being an Atomic Kitten fan.

We bid farewell to Liz, Tash and Jenny here, but they were good for six more Top 10 hits through to 2005, when they went on hiatus. In total they enjoyed thirteen Top 10s across six years: an amazing achievement for a group that couldn’t sing all that well and relied on that bloody drumbeat. Some will take that as evidence of slipping societal standards. But I take it as evidence of Atomic Kitten having something, whatever that something is, to elevate them above the many other similar groups of the time who also relied on pre-set beats and couldn’t sing all that well. I will, one final time, also bemoan the fact that none of the fun, innovative pop tracks from their first album made #1, and that we were left with their three, largely meh, chart-toppers.

933. ‘Round Round’, by Sugababes

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

In which Sugababes cement their sudden rise to becoming Britain’s biggest girl group, with another cool chart-topper.

Round Round, by Sugababes (their 2nd of six #1s)

1 week, from 18th – 25th August 2002

The energetic Spice Girls were a big exception to this rule, but generally the best girl groups are the ones that make it seem effortless. Like they don’t have to try, and can just conjure classic pop songs out of thin air. Watch great sixties groups like the Supremes and the Ronettes performing live: no wild dance routines, just sparkly dresses and a knowing smile. By the ‘90s the US rap-pop girl groups like TLC and En Vogue had the same haughty spirit, while All Saints turned looking like they couldn’t be arsed into an art form.

Sugababes were firmly in this camp. Listen to the way Mutya almost whispers her opening verse. Calling it husky, or sultry, can’t quite tell the whole story. She sounds like she’s just gotten out of bed, three hours late to the studio. It drips in attitude. I think the kids today might call it cunty. Whatever, it works.

I like that the beat scythes like a huge blade – one of those big wind pylons – swooping ‘round round’ every couple of seconds. The entire song spins as the title suggests it must. It’s the perfect follow-up to the great ‘Freak Like Me’, enough of a similar vibe – same tempo, same attitude – but sufficiently different to suggest they weren’t turning into one-trick ponies. There’s no sample, no cover version, here. Or at least, not an overt one. The backing beat is based on a track called ‘Tango Forte’, which in turn is based on ‘Whatever Lola Wants’, a song from the 1955 musical ‘Damn Yankees’.

Which is another great argument for sampling not just being lazy snatching of someone else’s ideas. For who could listen to that mid-fifties showtune and hear a pop song from forty years in the future? But for all this bigging up, I have to admit: I don’t think it’s as good as ‘Freak Like Me’. It’s good, very good even, but just not as ear-grabbing as its predecessor. Apart from, that is, the middle eight. In which a completely different song, a piano ballad, is transplanted in right into the heart of this record. It jars, but it works, and the way it slowly morphs back into that ‘Tango Forte’ beat is great.

This chart-topper confirmed that Sugababes Mk II were off and away. Three years of solid hit making were in store, until Mutya left the group in late 2005. Two of them we’ll cover as #1s in the not too distant future. But I should also point you back in time, to Sugababes Mk I, and the singles from their ‘flop’ first album: ‘New Year’, ‘Soul Sound’, and one of the best from any stage of their careers: ‘Overload’.

932. ‘Colourblind’, by Darius

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

We’ve had the ‘Pop Idol’ winner, and the runner-up. Why not have the bronze medallist…?

Colourblind, by Darius (his 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 4th – 18th August 2002

Darius Danesh had never really been in the running to win the contest against the big two, but he made it to the penultimate round. Then he did the unimaginable, turning down an offer from Simon Cowell and striking out alone. Which means we have the first self-penned reality TV chart-topper.

Under the guise of authenticity, we’re often encouraged to approve more of music that is written by the people singing it. When I was a teen it was a big indicator of an artist or groups’ talent. “Yes, but do they write their own songs…?” Yet, every song is written by someone. There is no such thing as a song tree. And nobody criticises actors for reading somebody else’s lines. Why does it matter if you sing someone else’s song? It worked for Dusty Springfield, the greatest singer Britain has ever produced. It worked for Elvis, who wrote about three songs in his lifetime.

All that is a roundabout way of saying “well done Darius” on writing a number one single; but also of saying that the song is no better than Will Young’s version of ‘Light My Fire’, and is not as good as Gareth Gates’ ‘Anyone of Us’. It has a big pop chorus – You’re the light when I close my eyes, I’m colourblind… – and a modern, very pop-rock feel. This is the future of rock music, really. For guitars to appear at the top of the charts later in the 21st century, they’ve had to soften their edges and exist in songs like this, or by One Republic, or (shudder) The Script…

But it’s let down by the fact that it sounds written-to-order for a rom-com (a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes sort of rom-com), and by the gauche lyrics, in which Darius lists all the colours he feels when he sees the girl he fancies. Feeling black, When I think of all the things that I feel I lack…

Darius was born in Glasgow (in Bearsden, the posh bit) to a Scottish-Iranian family. Post-singing career I remember him always popping up on Scottish TV, as we do love a local kid done good (see also: Michelle McManus). Following ‘Colourblind’ he managed two albums, and four more Top 10 singles, before moving into both said TV career, and a successful stint in musical theatre. The fact he had any sort of career at all is testament to his perseverance, after his legendarily bad performance of ‘…Baby One More Time’ while auditioning for Popstars in 2000. He died very young, aged just forty-one, in 2022, from a suspected accidental overdose.

931. ‘Anyone of Us (Stupid Mistake)’, by Gareth Gates

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

Well, here’s a surprise. ‘Pop Idol’ runner-up, and one of the clearest cases of pop puppetry ever unleashed on the world, Gareth Gates’ second single is… pretty good?

Anyone of Us (Stupid Mistake), by Gareth Gates (his 2nd of four #1s)

3 weeks, from 14th July – 4th August 2002

It starts off unpromisingly. A piano riff that brings to mind Westlife at their most maudlin leads us in. But soon Westlife are discarded for an intro that sounds more like peak Backstreet Boys (it flirts very heavily with ‘I Want It That Way’). Then bang: a chorus that could have competed with anything on Britney Spears’ first couple of albums.

Of course, these references were three years old by 2002, which perhaps gives away the fact that this is an already somewhat dated pop song. But that’s all forgiven as the chorus washes over us: It could happen to anyone of us, Anyone you think of… I think this is a fine song, one that would be better remembered if it had been recorded by somebody else.

It loses its way a bit in a meandering middle eight, but it gathers itself for a mid-line key change, and soaring finish. My only other complaint would be that it sounds perfect for a festive-ballad release, not for the height of summer. Not that it was hurt by its release date, with three weeks on top and 600,000 copies sold; but imagine this with added sleigh bells and tell me if it doesn’t scream Christmas number one.

With singing contest winners/runners up it was all about the second single. The debut single was guaranteed to be a huge hit; and also guaranteed to be crap. But once that obligation was fulfilled, it was always interesting to see what direction they would go in. I’d rate this ahead of Will Young’s cover of ‘Light My Fire’. But sadly Gareth Gates wasn’t given many more singles of this quality, as his upcoming #1s will attest.

I also have a soft spot for love-songs-that-aren’t-really-love-songs, and this is a classic of the genre, with Gareth rather smarmily admitting to an affair. The situation got out of hand, I hope you understand… Whether or not this song came before, during, or after Gates’ famous, virginity-robbing romp with Katie Price, I do not know. But I like to imagine him singing it to his pre-fame girlfriend, presumably a homely Bradford lass. Though I’m not sure if “it could happen to anyone of us” is ever the best way to open an apology…

I’m going to crown this as the best of the reality TV number ones so far (this is the seventh), narrowly ahead of Liberty X. And I’m going to try and keep ranking them for as long as possible. Which will be difficult, as there’s so bloody many of them. Including our very next chart-topper…

929. ‘Light My Fire’, by Will Young

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

‘Pop Idol’ champion Will Young returns with something a little more original than his bland winner’s single…

Light My Fire, by Will Young (his 2nd of four #1s)

2 weeks, from 2nd – 16th June 2002

Okay, original might be a stretch. It is another cover, this time of the Doors’ ‘Light My Fire’. But the treatment he gives this sixties classic is light and breezy. Presumably knowing that he couldn’t give it the full-blooded Jim Morrison treatment, Young goes for a slinky, still very sixties-coded, approach. There’s a sexy bossa nova beat, and a pretty cool guitar solo. It owes much more to José Feliciano’s version (a bigger hit in the UK) than the original.

It’s actually… okay. You may detect a hint of surprise there, and you’d be right. Back in 2002, when I was sixteen, it was very much the done thing to write this single off without actually listening to it, and to make sure everyone knew that you knew this was a cover. ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe he’s done that to the Doors’, we could be heard saying, probably without very many of us having actually ever heard the original, or even knowing about the existence Feliciano’s version.

This was the first sign that Will Young might have had something about him, a hint at a career beyond the Simon Cowell sludge factory. That wouldn’t become fully apparent until his second album, but the signs were here. Compare this with Gareth Gates’ – still very successful – second single (coming up on top of the charts soon, don’t you worry!)

Young had performed ‘Light My Fire’ during his auditions for ‘Pop Idol’, so he presumably liked the song – not something that he would say about ‘Evergreen’. He also performed it at the Eurovision-esque ‘World Idol’, in which the winners from various ‘Pop Idol’ franchises around the world competed against one another. He finished fifth.

With all this talk of ‘Light My Fire’s different versions, we need to mention Amii Stewart’s disco version, twice a UK Top 10 hit, and Shirley Bassey’s fabulously dramatic version from 1970. However, and possibly quite boringly, I’m going to stick my neck out for the seven-minute acidic psychedelia of the Doors. Sometimes the original is simply the best. And as much as Young’s version is tolerable, it’s still unfortunate that it gave the song a higher chart-placing than any of these classics.

927. ‘Just a Little’, by Liberty X

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

Our 5th singing contest chart-topper in just over a year. The X Factor Age is well underway…

Just a Little, by Liberty X (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 19th – 26th May 2002

And of the five, this is definitely the best so far. I might go so far as to say that it remains one of the best. It’s upbeat, modern, and fun – a world away from Will Young and Gareth Gates’s syrupy attempts, and Hear’Say’s dated efforts. Its opening line – Sexy, Everything about you so sexy… really seemed to enter the public consciousness (or at least my school playground consciousness), while the chanted chorus enters the brain and remains there for some time.

Musically it’s nothing too out the box – in claiming it’s the ‘best’ reality TV #1 so far we have to remember how low the bar is – with lots of early-noughties pop touches, but keeping a great pop sensibility in the chorus and the middle-eight. It’s a bridge between S Club’s bubblegum and the Britney Spears’ classics of the era. And is it too much to suggest that Britney’s songwriters were listening when they came up with something that sounded quite similar, lyrically and melodically, to gimme just a little bit more… a few years later?

Liberty X were made up of contestants who had been rejected during the auditions for Popstars winners Hear’Say. It is perhaps this distance, and the fact that they were picked up by a record label not under the whip of Simon Cowell, which gave them the freedom to release something not beholden to reality TV schmaltz. Their first two singles, including their #5 debut ‘Thinking it Over’, had been released under the name Liberty, but after a legal challenge from a ‘90s R&B band of the same name they were forced to add the ‘X’. It did them no harm, as their first release as Liberty X brought them this huge smash, the 8th biggest seller of the year.

There’s an argument to be made for not winning TV singing contests if you want to have lasting musical success. Plenty of non-winners have gone on to massive popularity, One Direction being the ones that spring to mind first. Liberty X never managed 1D levels of success, but they were regulars in the British charts between 2001 and 2005, with eight Top 10 hits in that time, stats that Hear’Say could only dream of.

They split in 2006, after their third album bombed. They reformed a few times, and now exist with only the three female members. One of the two original male members, Kevin Simms, has been the lead vocalist for Wet Wet Wet since 2018. Imagine telling someone in 2002 that one of the token blokes in Liberty X would go on to become the new Marti Pellow…